A class of stuff that I can't (without "trouble in the office") write my own way I will not write at all. So I'm writing very little of anything but nonsense. * * * With best regards to Mrs. Sterling and Miss Marian I am Sincerely yours, AMBROSE BIERCE. Leigh died a year ago this morning. I wish I could stop counting the days. [The Olympia, Washington, D. C., April 15, 1902.] DEAR STERLING, All right--I only wanted you to be _sure_ about those names of stars; it would never do to be less than sure. After all our talk (made by me) I guess that stanza would better stand as first written. "Clime"--climate--connotes temperature, weather, and so forth, in ordinary speech, but a poet may make his own definitions, I suppose, and compel the reader to study them out and accept them. Your misgiving regarding your inability to reach so high a plane again as in this poem is amusing, but has an element of the pathetic. It certainly is a misfortune for a writer to do his _best_ work early; but I fancy you'd better trust your genius and do its bidding whenever the monkey chooses to bite. "The Lord will provide." Of course you have read Stockton's story "His Wife's Deceased Sister." But Stockton gets on very well, despite "The Lady or the Tiger." I've a notion that you'll find other tragedies among the stars if earth doesn't supply you with high enough themes. Will I write a preface for the book? Why, yes, if you think me competent. Emerson commands us to "hitch our wagon to a star?" and, egad! here's a whole constellation--a universe--of stars to draw mine! It makes me blink to think of it. O yes, I'd like well enough to "leave the Journal," but-- Sincerely yours, AMBROSE BIERCE. [The Olympia, Washington, D. C., July 10, 1902.] MY DEAR STERLING, If rejection wounded, all writers would bleed at every pore. Nevertheless, not my will but thine be done. Of course I shall be glad to go over your entire body of work again and make suggestions if any occur to me. It will be no trouble--I could not be more profitably employed than in critically reading you, nor more agreeably. * * * * *